Men At Work

Anyone who has driven through Frayser lately has noticed the "MEN AT WORK" signs on almost every street, and its not just for show. Its all a part of the Mayor's campaign to rid the city of blight. But this mess didn't appear last week. It has been a problem for years. For the most part, the city has allowed these problems to fester. They spread like a cancer to surrounding city blocks and before you know it whole neighborhoods are falling apart and the problems become insurmountable. Its not just Frayser. Whole communities are being left to rot. And it is usually the same sad story: the big employers left first, then incomes began to decrease, those that could leave did, major retail centers dried up, properties were abandoned, and, well you get the idea. So now the city is left with a major problem.

I am not expecting city leaders to control national economic trends. I know this same situation is happening in hundreds of neighborhoods around the country, but that doesn't mean that we can just ignore our problems here. There are trees and brush so overgrown that you can't see the vacant house behind them. The ones you can see are decorated with gang graffiti. Many of the vacant homes aren't even boarded up and they soon become crime dens. The grass is waist high. There is so much debris on the sidewalks that people have to walk in the street and there is so much yard waste and trash clogging the storm drains that even a rat couldn't get down there.

Now, as I drive through the city, I see men at work and they definitely have a lot of work to do. But why are these issues addressed so dutifully all the time? Maybe they would be if every year was an election year. If elected city leaders knew that their jobs were on the line every October they just might do something the other 11 months of the year. But inevitably inertia sets in, other issues take precedence and they forget about all the promises they made during the re-election campaigns.

Don't get me wrong, I like A.C.. I think he and many of our council members have done alot for the city. But why do we have to wait until election season to see them make good on their promises? If we had real conversations about the real issues that plague so many neighborhoods and then actually did something about them in a timely fashion, Memphis would be in a much better place than it is now.

We can't attract new businesses to come to Memphis and locate in these communities in the shape they are in now. If we don't care about our neighborhoods how can we expect someone else to? Through our actions, or lack thereof, we are showing that we really just don't care enough to do anything. But the truth is, I think most of us really do care. Its just that the problem has gotten so big and out of control that no one really knows where to start.

When our politicians are running for office they seem energized;ready and willing to tackle any problem. But once they get into office all that energy seems to slowly fizzle out, until the next election. I say no more! We should fight blight every day and if that is too big of a problem for the city to manage they should at least support the organizations who are willing to take on the task.

There are many hard working Memphians who have made it their mission to do something. Every day they get up and fight the good fight. Its not glamorous and its not pretty, but they do it anyway. The reporters don't show up asking for interviews and no one gets a fancy victory party. They just do their job and go home happy knowing that they made a tiny difference. I wish all of our local leaders could say they same thing but sadly they can not. A City in Motion? Apparently only in October.